What is keeping us from developing a handheld railgun/gauss rifle? I'm guessing electricity storage?
>>29464421
Basically. People make them in their garages as a hobby.
>>29464421
>handheld railgun
Power source and the fact that the rails will melt after one or two shots.
>gauss rifle
Power source.
That and it wouldn't function any better than what we have. Its all good and well to ballistically outperform our current firearms tech, but when that comes at the expense of practicality, reliability and longevity, it isn't worthwhile IMO. Chemical is simply a far more efficient way of storing energy, so powder isn't going anywhere any time soon.
>>29464421
Power supply.
The tactical advantages are there, though. Especially adjustable velocity. Being able to go from "loud-as-all-fuck tank-stopper" to "quiet-as-the-grave man-stopper" at the turn of a dial is comforting. There's also the fact that removing the need for primers and powders frees up a lot of room for more "exotic" projectiles. That, along with being a modular, all-electric weapon that could be built larger or smaller would basically render "Recoilless Rifles" like the Carl Gustav obsolete.
You'd need to develop EMP shielding to really sell it, though.
Shoot terrorist with railgun
Projectile busts through hundreds of houses, countless trees, goes clean through any bridge foundations, etc
I think the first time they tested tungsten sabots for American tanks, the projectile destroyed the target and passed through with which enough energy to bust clean through the huge dirt mound at the back of the artillery range, then it busted through a couple trees going through acres and acres of forest, before settling halfway in a lightpole a couple miles away from the range. It was found months later.
That's just a story I heard a guy say sharing a picture of the recovered projectile wedged in a wooden pole.
I imagine it would be even worse with railguns.
>>29465205
>I think the first time they tested tungsten sabots for American tanks
tungsten is less dense than du and non-self sharpening, so that guy was full of shit. there is a reason why the us still uses du. the germans only switched to it because they're tremendous eurofags.
i can't believe you fell for that shit.
>>29464421
The rails itself. And finding a suitable power source.
>>29465387
Didn't they kinda fix the rails issue or at least drastically lessen it?
>>29465112
>"quiet-as-the-grave man-stopper"
if your projectile is supersonic you're making a lot of fucking noise no matter what you do
ps 'silencers' don't make a gun silent.
>>29464421
Probably the most likely device to be "man-portable" and still be useful and as practical to the modern or near-future soldier would probably be something the size of a recoiless rifle. Something that could fit on a two-wheeled cart and can be pulled and manned by two or three men, or towed or mounted on a vehicle. Using disposable capacitors, that before being used are attached to a larger battery system that keeps the capacitors topped-off at all times, and tungsten penetrators, it could functionally make the recoiless rifle obsolete. You probably couldn't get it as small as a Carl Gustav though with even near-future technology without a single unit being obscenely expensive. The smallest I see it getting is a 3 man crewed vehicle that uses it in a situation where tanks are too overt, and a sniper with an anti-material rifle doesn't provide enough fire-power.
There is also the cool idea of being able change velocity of the projectile by the flip of a switch or turn of a dial. It allows you to adjust for what angle you what the projectile to hit the target slightly, or how loud it is.
The biggest technological hurdle is keeping capacitors charged, as they lose their charge quickly over time. Ships today use their own nuclear plants to keep them charged. The only way I can see this tech getting smaller is if you somehow can pre-charge the capacitors and hook them up to a standalone charging station to be taken out on the field. There is also the issue that this ammo has a lifespan that is very short compared to chemical ammo.
>>29465205
This is way too unrealistic to believe and only someone who has never read about sabot ammunition before would. Early post-WWII sabot penetrators were able to penetrate anywhere between 180 to 300mm depending on the size and velocity. Some where only marginally better than existing composite ammo of late-war WWII tanks.
Dirt is also REALLY good at stopping bullets. I seriously doubt it would pass through the steel target, backstop that is likely at least a dozen feet thick, multiple trees, and travel "acres and acres", before stopping.
>>29465400
No matter what, you'll need to replace the rails eventually, especially if you're firing the device more than one time consecutively. They will warp and inevitably cause the projectile to lose accuracy or, at worst case, cause catastrophic failure. If a railgun was small enough to be used by a single person, they'd need to change rails as frequently as ammo. Similar to changing barrels on a machine gun I guess.
>>29464457
You don't hate it when enemy has armor?
I fucking hate it, and i want it rendered useless.
Our batteries are dogshit.
Lithuim batteries are nearly 100 years old, and we've barely improved them in comparison to other technologies in the same time span. We haven't found a better way of storing electricity than LiPo and LiOn batteries... and probably won't find anything substantially better. The amount of power needed to fuel a Gauss gun or railgun is absolutely insane, which is why chemical propellants are going to be the pinnacle of small arms design for many years to come.
Railguns can be deployed on a larger scale, such as in tanks, artillery, missile defense systems, and on ships... but even in these platforms there's a huge power consumption issue. Lockheed is developing a small nuclear reactor in hopes to curb these problems.
>>29465469
What armor exists that is so impenetrable that it would call for a man-portable railgun, and still require a single man to be able to take it out in direct combat?
If you're target is heavily armored you use anti-tank HEAT weaponry or explosives, call for the armor that should be accompanying you, or call for artillery or air support.
What seems even less probable than railgun tech existing in a man-portable variant, is a single man having enough armor to deflect high caliber chemical-propellant weapons without being a literal mechsuit dude. And let's please not talk about mechs.
>>29465363
>the germans only switched to it because they're tremendous eurofags.
or its that cleanup is fucking expensive when you are fighting on your own ground. The Americans don't care since they fight away all the time and the Russians don't either since they have a fuck lot of empty land.
>>29465112
I'd say we're getting there though. My phone has a bigger and better battery than my parents' laptop from like 2 years ago.
>>29465363
It might have been DU, actually. I can't recall, I read it years ago.
>>29465453
He told the story, I'm just repeating it.
He had a picture of a 12 inch section of telephone pole with a sabot halfway through, and the tip was curbing into a spiral.
Pretty much everything is bait but anything is possible.
>>29464421
>physics
>logic
>>29465481
Fallout universe incoming.
>>29465494
Depleted uranium is only one of the many worries of cleanup after battle. There are dozens of things that can be just as bad or worse to clean up after battle. The bad thing about DU penetrators is that the fragments that get into you are going to ultimately shorten you lifespan, but so will lead fragments.
Some things that are just as serious as DU are asbestos, radium, and unexploded munitions.
>>29465481
There's that New battery shit that uses graphene? I forget.
Fuck railguns and coilguns; I will be pissed if I don't see someone produce a viable man-portable directed energy weapon.
>>29465586
Technically flamethrowers.
MARAUDER might be more of what you're looking for, but all that is classified since 1993.
>>29465507
>It might have been DU, actually. I can't recall, I read it years ago.
du is not that efficient. nothing is.
>>29465507
IIRC they miscalculated some ballistic calculations and the round flew over the end of the range.
>>29464421
>tuning fork railguns
WHEN WILL THIS MEME END
Barrel wear is apparently also an unending nightmare.
Can't get them to last more than a few hundred rounds or something, if that.
>>29465639
It will never end. Graphic artists can't into gun design.
>>29464457
>That and it wouldn't function any better than what we have
>not into space infantry.
If barrel wear was such a problem, how is the Naval lab coats testing their railgun firing it all willy nilly?
Perhaps this "melting rails" thing is just disinformation disseminated in order to mask progress on actual railguns and discourage others from looking into it? Just like how plasma guns supposedly would not work because the plasma would dissipate in the air too quickly to be useful, and yet we have Project MARAUDER, which was a fully-functioning plasma gun back in 1993?
>>29465702
Not everything is a conspiracy.
-t. Railgun engineer
>>29464421
If you build it equivalent to 5.56mm or 7.62mm you have a more complex system with lots of failure points for no advantage. Its pretty much the same until you surpass .50cal BMG.
At that point you have a vehicle mounted anti-material weapon and its no longer handheld.
>>29464421
The same thing that keeps us from developing man-portable EMP weapons: Power supply and usage
>>29465638
You might be right, it might have gone over the end of the range.
>>29465622
Telephone poles are straight up and the sabot penetrated it in a perpendicular way. The end of the sabot was curved around itself kinda like the mountain Jack stands on in Nightmare Before Christmas. It shouldn't have been that bended from just one or two trees. It clearly had the energy to bust through plenty of them. IIRC it was early testing of sabots so I'm not sure what it's composition or design was, not like I'm very familiar with them anyways.
>>29465866
You should keep your terminology straight because the sabots and the projectile are separate pieces.
Also, anything fired can skip off the ground. Sabots are not aerodynamic and will tumble.
>>29465427
Heres a realistic progress for rail/gauss guns.
Stage 1: use on ships where energy and space requirements can be met.
Stage 2: with refinement they are now deployed in static artillery positions on larger forward bases replacing long range missiles as an inexpensive long range strike system.
Stage 3: with even further refinements mortars and light vehicle mounted models exist similar in power to a recoiless rifle. Likley having lower velocity but compensating by having an explosive warhead.
4: crew served HMG type weapons, followed by shoulder fired models.
It can be pretty hard to predict technological progression, as breakthroughs and discoveries can render the previously impossible commonplace, but im guessing that without major influences we will see reliable railgun style weapons that do as well or better than current firearms become standard issue in about 50 to 75 years.
Give or take. Another cold war style arms race could spur development and accelerate discoveries, or people could become disinterested and it takes 100 years to get around to figuring it out. Tech is wierd like that.
>>29465970
It all comes down to military budget. Cheaply operated artillery is not as exciting as the JSF or the LRS-B.
>>29465935
I don't think anyone would believe those breakaway plastic parts would ever burst through trees, so I thought what I was saying was clear enough.
But you are correct.
>>29465702
Project MARAUDER capacitor banks (specifically the shiva star banks shown here)
First off, plasma blooming was still a huge issue with marauder which is why it was intended to be an orbital weapon firing at orbital targets. it was devastating to whatever it hit since it was firing plasma at 3% the speed of light, but even in a vaccume keeping a plasma toroid coherent beyond point blank ranges utilizes too much energy to be viable as a weapon.
It used monumental amounts of energy, weighed hundreds of tons, and was able to accomplish what can be done much more practically using existing weapons, or other means like railguns.
It was scrapped and the high energy principles learned were applied to the current railgun program.
Turns out hitting something with a mach speed slug kills it just as dead and uses less energy than creating, containing, and accelerating plasma.
>>29466043
Fuck, forgot picture.
This is the kind of capacitor bank you need to fire a plasma toroid a few hundred meters.
Lasers, railguns, or missiles are an exponentially more efficient way to deliver energy to a target.
>>29466072
Im retarded.
>tfw the government won't make the same mistakes with rail guns that they made with firearms
>tfw civilians will never own such weapons
>>29466127
>implying it was a mistake in the first place
Oh good, people are already starting to think the government made a mistake by allowing civilian firearm ownership.
The anti gun agenda has done well.
>>29466139
The government doesnt allow us anything on the bill of rights, so much as they are forbidden to infringe upon such rights.
The government doesnt grant you rights, being born as a human being does.
>>29465970
The problem with using railguns as artillery is that you can't really reliably launch high explosives from one. The velocity that these rounds is so high that the friction literally superheats the surrounding atmosphere and the round itself to the point where gases turn to plasma. High explosives would fail at the moment they leave the barrel, or worse, inside the barrel. I'm not sure if the impact of a solid round would cause a large enough shockwave to be an effective replacement for conventional explosives.
It could be used as a precision artillery piece, but even today we use semi-guided and guided ammunitions fired from artillery, and again, I can't really see us being able to use those when the round is literally at the melting threshold. Granted, I know little about that area of guided munitions, or artillery.
I just don't see it being cheaper than conventional artillery that already exists, and I personally don't think you get a much more effective precision weapon then a guided missile.
>is there a guided missile in existence that uses a penetrating warhead rather than a high-explosive or HEAT one, that is equipped with a secondary booster which ignites when directly over-top a target, accelerating to speeds that make devices like trophy ineffective?
If that doesn't exist, I think that would be the next logical step in missile design.
>>29466139
It was a mistake from their perspective
>>29464421
Power source that would have any efficiency for its size. Rapid fire with a railgun would create enough heat to vaporize it after 10 shots.
>>29465702
Metal warps when it is super heated. I have no doubt in my mind that they need to regularly replace the rails inside to maintain accuracy. And you'll have to define "firing willy nilly". How many shots could they fire consecutively before needing to recharge the capacitors? If you just saw multiple frames of them firing the gun, they probably edited the video to make you watch the hours required to store the energy for another shot.
If I had to guess, they would wait for the rails to cool down to nominal levels before firing again to avoid warping them. Although, if you heat metal to a certain point, it will lose shape and hardness regardless of how long it was heated. We don't know how hot the rails actually get or know the dimensions of them, so it's really up in the air how many they actually can fire, but I can guarantee they don't last forever and they can't fire many.
>railguns magically shoot through schools!
the best that real handheld railguns can do is chuck a ball bearing a few feet. they are extremely feeble weapons.
>>29464421
Rails get destroyed after a couple shots.
Most electromagnetically efficient shape for projectile is a rectangular shape making them inaccurate at all but the highest velocities where there is not enough flight time to deviate course.
Railguns create EMPs when fired.
Railguns generate insane amounts of heat, plasma will blow out the end of even small caliber guns.
Lightweight super capacitors don't exist for infantry and small vehicle use.
There are better options for hypervelocity weapons.
>>29465970
Oh and unless there is some hidden caveat to the laws of thermodynamics, or some miracle material that absorbs heat like literally no other, automatic rail weapons would destroy themselves in a few seconds.
>>29466127
>"It's not a rail gun I swear officer! It's just an electromagnetic catapult I made!"
tfw railguns get restriction laws equivalent to that of a slingshot
>>29466217
The US Navy is building naval artillery scale railguns for use on ships. A set of nine 16" railguns would have plenty of raw KE to deliver as solid state projectiles.
>Introducing the new battleship USS Fuck This Area In Particular
>>29465481
Lithium batteries have energy density ~.5MJ/kg. Assuming 20% efficiency of energy conversion 0.5 kg battery stores enough for 30 5.56 shots. What is very feasible.
Problems is batteries have absolutly not enough specific POWER so they can't power railgun directly. They do it through intermediate source with enough power capacity. Such sources are capacitors. And they are dogshit with 500J/kg energy density. 5.56 level gun at 20% efficiency will require 20kg capacitors bank.
>>29466279
Well that whole "taser's are protected under the 2nd amendment too" thing on the east coast has already set precadent that all weapons fall under the 2nd amendment.
Gonna be some pretty tricky legal footwork going on in the future regarding what constitutes a destructive device and what doeant.
(Im guessing something like a restriction to how many foot pounds of energy may be released or something)
>>29466286
but my point was that it would be much more economically efficient to use conventional, or even missiles, at the point to achieve the same effect. My other point was me basically saying that 9 16" conventional guns would also provide much more raw destructive power spread over an area than a railgun. Railguns are ultimately going to be precision weapons rather than artillery.
>>29466295
This guy gets the biggest issue of railguns.
Energy storage is fine in today's world, it is energy TRANSFER that is the problem. Railguns use extremely large amounts of energy very very quickly. Capacitors transfer energy very quickly, essentially at the cost of only being able to store small amounts of it, and modern ones can typically "leak" that energy faster as well if it isn't used quickly enough.
>>29466317
When was the last time we even had an enemy worth using 16" guns on? Desert Storm? The precision and ability to direct all that energy straight down is a bonus for bunker-busting, which makes railguns a great complement to cruise missiles. The railguns crack the bunker open like an egg and then explosives scramble the contents.
>>29466315
I thought tasers were considered firearms because they used chemical propellant to launch the barbs?
>>29466295
Assuming your math is good, thats actually pretty incredible.
I wish I was smart enough to build one. Especially since the laws definition of a firearm doesnt include railguns yet so you could make it fun-mode legally i think.
>>29466340
So even 9 "16 inch" (whatever the equivalent measurement for a railgun would be.. megajoules?) would be overkill to me. You probably don't need more than 2 or 3 guns on one boat for precision railguns, although today's railguns ARE inaccurate due to the shape of the ammunition.
>>29466357
it's giggle would be so powerful, it would laugh itself into super-heated gas particles.
>>29466374
Then you activate a magnetic field to contain them in a ~1m tube in front of the weapon. The last setting on the fire selector is "transform into a lightsaber."
>>29466286
>battleship
the railguns will be used for shore bombardment, retardo
you shoot ships with missiles
>>29466346
They use compressed gas, but no, the issue with the law was that the chicks libtard state was trying to say that the 2nd amendment only covers weapons that existed back then (aka only knives and firearms)
The courts said no, it covers arms, defining such as dangerous objects capable of being wielded as a weapon by a person.
In other words the 2nd amendment doesnt just cover guns. It covers ANY weapon. Be that a rock, baseball-bat, taser, knife, gun, railgun, phaser in the 40 watt range.......
So technically railguns are already covered by the 2nd amendment. But, and this is a biggie, to what energy level are we talking about?
I think that we would probably see something like a foot pounds delivered to target limit (say, anything more powerful than a .50 BMG round is a destructive dethou) it would be really tricky to regulate though.
Im assuming some really entertaining/frustrating bans would be placed on them similar to the scary salt weapons bans in some states where any weapon utilizing a gauss or railgun style mechanism would be banned entirely despite a gun being only a single shot .22 equivalent.
Its hard to tell.
>>29466405
>the railguns will be used for shore bombardment, retardo
So were the Iowa's guns in Desert Storm. Obviously missiles or torpedoes are better for moving naval targets.
>>29465970
I don't think they'll be efficient enough for use as a HMG, more likely as the same role as a recoilless rifle that would be mounted on a vehicle. The high velocity potential is better suited for it to fill the job of an anti-material rifle, so the M82 / M107 might get replaced with a portable railgun that can put a fin-stabilized projectile on target much more accurately and with a lot less lead required. If it's good for that though, it will certainly be good for all kinds of sniper applications, including being a rifle that can switch from supersonic (hypersonic?) to subsonic on the fly with no suppressor required for relatively silent operation. I am sure that there are quite a few wet work people who would appreciate that.
>>29465414
He's saying you drop the voltage so it sends the projectile off at subsonic speeds bro.
Less electricity = Less magnatisim = slower projectile
Because theres no expanding gas, since your not using conventional rounds but rather solid bits of metal, you only need to worry about the speed of the projectile when it comes to being quiet.
>>29466555
you're not wrong, but almost instantly accelerating the projectile will create instant friction against the surrounding air, and it will be hot enough to expand the air in the barrel. It will cause some sound, but not very much I believe. You'd probably be able to hear it out to a few yards without something similar to a suppressor to properly vent any gases being pushed out the barrel.
>>29466780
and to add to this, a railgun may ultimately be unable to be silent, because of the sudden release of a lot of electricity from the capacitor. This transfer of energy to the rails is done very quickly, and may cause noise.
A coil gun on the other hand might be a better choice. Electricity constantly runs through the coil, and the projectile picks up speed as it passes by each section of wire, which could be fairly quiet, especially if the projectile was somehow suspended between the coil, and there was no barrel.
Probably late to the party here but my understanding is it's all about the batteries and capacitors we can currently build holding us back.
>>29466866
>railgun may ultimately be unable to be silent,
>what is suppressors
>>29466899
You have no idea how suppressors work or why they wouldn't work on a railgun, do you?
You're a retard.
>>29466914
>taking his shitty bait
>>29466899
>>29466899
>not reading the whole post
>>29466914
As retarded as the reply was, a silencer probably isn't impossible, as the simplest of silencers just vent gas in a specific way to reduce the sound. You can make one out of metal, but even then, my original point was first, that railguns "don't do slow" and firing one creates so much friction, the projectile and surrounding air turns to hot plasma, and second, that the actual projectile might not be the biggest problem with silencing a railgun, the "action" would be. The capacitors might create quite a bit of noise when discharging.
>>29466914
Suppressors isolate barrel from outside atmosphere and slowly (relatively) dissipate excessive pressure.
>>29465205
>>29465363
>>29465453
>>29467644
Most of the noise is from the arc flash when the armature leaves the rails. There are ways to reduce the duration and intensity of the arc flash but doing it is undesirable due to tradeoffs.
>>29465205
Small note that I like to post in every single one of these railgun threads: Velocity is a variable, especially when you have to make something man portable. As long as we have to obey newton, we have to restrict that muzzle velocity below the point where it turns your collarbone into chowder.
>>29466346
The first tazers did, but they changed them to avoid falling under firearms regulations.
>>29469238
I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion. A portable railgun will have more than enough mass for recoil.
>>29469320
there won't be recoil, since the push is coming from around the projectile and not from behind it.
